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“Don’t you dare.”
Murasakibara pauses in the act of getting the pan for him, easily reaching over Kuroko even when Kuroko was practically tiptoeing on the stool.
“But Kuro-chin, you’re gonna fall,” he warns, pressing his back against Kuroko just to keep him stable.
“Then maybe you should stop keeping the pans in such a high shelf.” Kuroko hisses, ignoring the painful fact that the pans were in the lowest shelf. It was just that the shelves were built so high because the entire Murasakibara family was a genetic line of two-meter tall monstrosities.
Murasakibara sighs and backs off of him, and before Kuroko can wonder about the uncharacteristic compliance, hands were suddenly hooked under his arms and he was hefted up in a sad parody of that iconic scene from Lion King.
Kuroko frowns sullenly, the shelf he had been trying so hard to reach now at eye-level.
“Go get it Kuro-chin,” Murasakibara prompts, shaking him slightly.
Kuroko sighs, pulls the pan out and mumbles a thank you as Murasakibara sets him back down.
-
“Ne, Kuro-chin, try this.”
Kuroko silences the food processor and looks up to see a spoon of sugared cream cheese angled towards his mouth. He leans in a little too fast just as Murasakibara pushes the spoon forward, and the misjudged distance causes the cream to smear across his upper lip.
“Ah, sorry,” the taller boy apologizes (Kuroko thinks he doesn’t sound apologetic at all) and leans over and licks the cream right off.
“Wiping it away would’ve been a waste,” is the only explanation given, after more than the necessary number of licks needed to clean off a single stripe of cream cheese.
“Why am I not surprised that you would justify it with that?” Kuroko mumbles, and Murasakibara just continues to wave the spoon in front of him, reminding him that he has yet to have a taste of it. He opens his mouth and lets Murasakibara feed him the cream cheese filling, closing his eyes for a while to gauge the flavor of it.
“It’s perfect, Murasakibara-kun.” Kuroko praises, tongue tingling pleasantly from the tartness of the filling. Murasakibara wonders where the sparkles surrounding him came from.
“Doesn’t it need more sugar?”
The sparkles dissipate and Kuroko puts a finger to his chin thoughtfully. “I personally like my cheesecakes on the sour side. But remember we’ll be adding Nutella to it anyway, so you might not want to add too much sugar at this point.”
He nods in agreement and moves to pat the shorter boy’s head. “Kuro-chin is so smart.”
-
“The crust is in the oven.” Kuroko says, setting the timer for fifteen minutes. “How’s the filling?”
“It’s okay.” Murasakibara slurs around the spoon in his mouth, stirring a chocolate mixture in a glass bowl. “But I’ve already added the eggs, so no more taste-tests.”
“What’s in that spoon you just put in your mouth then?”
“It’s just regular Nutella, Kuro-chin.” He said, taking the spoon and tapping it against the rim of a half-empty Nutella jar. “Want some?”
Kuroko shakes his head, nibbling instead on a cream he separated from the Oreo cookies to make the crust. Murasakibara stares at the plate of Oreo cream in his hands, opens his mouth, and Kuroko obligingly drops a disc of heavily sugared shortening into his waiting mouth.
The former Teikou center whines, and Kuroko feeds him five more.
-
“Kuro-chin,” Murasakibara hazards, watching with mortified eyes as Kuroko did away with the measuring spoons and poured vanilla essence into the bowl straight from the bottle, “isn’t that too much vanilla?”
“Don’t be silly, Murasakibara-kun.” Kuroko chides, a little too sweetly for Murasakibara’s comfort.
And if you dare argue, was the unspoken threat, I will be sure to make you regret it, and it will be painful.
Murasakibara is slow, but by no means is he a stupid man, so he turns back to his bowl of Nutella ganache and continues stirring.
Whoever said that Akashi was the scariest member of the Generation of Miracles clearly wasn’t taking Kuroko into account when he made that statement.
-
Later, when the mixer dies down and Kuroko is acting less like a pregnant woman on a vanilla craving, he lets Murasakibara lick off the remains of whipped cream on his fingers, and he continues to suck even long after the taste of vanilla is replaced by the taste of Kuroko’s skin.
It was no question which of the two he likes more.
-
The doorbell rings just as Murasakibara is piping rosettes around the circumference of the cooled cheesecake.
“I’ll get it,” Kuroko volunteers, and immediately regrets it when he opens the door to find four giants standing in the entrance.
“Ah, Kuro? You’re still here?” The tallest of them––Murasakibara Akihiro––comments, reaching down to pat him on the head. Before his hand could make contact, Kuroko was whisked away into a pair of arms.
“Kuro-chan, I haven’t seen you in so long!” While Murasakibara Ayame was the shortest, she certainly wasn’t short. Kuroko was standing on his tiptoes and yet his face was only pressed up against her…chest.
“Oi, stop that, the poor thing can’t breathe.” Murasakibara Arata scolds, arm slung over his twin’s shoulders.
“Don’t call Kuro-chan a thing, Ara-nii!” Ayame whines, but she lets go of Kuroko anyway. He sighs with relief a little too early because barely a second later, he is once again separated from the ground.
Akaya, the other Murasakibara twin, currently the one in possession of him, effortlessly hefts Kuroko over his shoulder and spins around. “Gotcha, Kuro-pi~”
“No fair, Aka-nii, you’re monopolizing Kuro-chan!”
“Boo, Aya-pi. I won him fair and square.”
Just as Kuroko is seriously considering using some version of his Vanishing Drive just to get out of being flung around like everyone’s favorite toy, the only Murasakibara he is happy to see comes through the doorway and pulls Kuroko from his older brother’s grip, lowering him back to the floor.
“Thank you, Murasakibara-kun,” is all he says, for fear of vomiting if he opens his mouth any longer.
Akihiro untangles himself from a play-fighting Ayame, Arata, and Akaya to greet his youngest sibling with a pat on the head. “What were you making this time?”
“We just finished with a Nutella cheesecake. We used the blast chiller but we didn’t touch your panna cottas, Aki-nii.”
Akihiro shrugs and turns his attention to Kuroko, ruffling his hair. “Nah, s’alright, those were just extras from a wedding.”
Ayame pops up from behind her eldest brother with a pout. “You didn’t make cookies, Atsu-chan? I miss Kuro-chan’s cookies, he makes them better than Aki-nii does.”
Apparently, the competitive streak also runs in the family, because Akihiro’s hand clenches threateningly around the top of his head. “Well, Kuro-chan isn’t the head pastry chef of one of the best hotels in Tokyo now, is he?”
Murasakibara, in a rare display of initiative, lifts his brother’s hand away and nudges Kuroko back into the relative safety of the kitchen.
-
“Maybe it was a bad idea to make those cookies for Aya-nee’s birthday. She’s completely in love with you now, Kuro-chin. Take responsibility.”
“I hardly think making anyone cookies warrants any form of responsibility on my part, Murasakibara-kun. I’ve given you a lot of sweets and snacks during middle school, remember?”
Murasakibara smiles wide around the spoon (Nutella again) wedged between his lips. “Was Kuro-chin seducing me back then, too?”
Kuroko doesn’t dignify it with a response, busying himself with sprinkling chopped hazelnuts over the center of the cake.
Murasakibara spits the spoon out into the sink (much to Kuroko’s disgust), slides closer and slumps until his chin is resting on top of Kuroko’s head. “Ne, Kuro-chin, you remember when we were making White Day gifts back in first year?”
Kuroko pauses and looks up, stopping when his nose bumps against Murasakibara’s chin. “You were teaching me how to make vanilla cupcakes. I loved them so much but I couldn’t replicate them no matter how hard I tried so I made you Valentines chocolate the year after, just so you could make me the vanilla cupcakes as a return gift for White Day.”
The purple-haired giant smiles and angles his head downwards until the tip of his nose meets Kuroko’s.
“I think we have enough time and ingredients for vanilla cupcakes, if you’re up for it.”
“You’re a man after my own heart, Murasakibara-kun.”